by Frank Robbins
Chapter 2: Brandy
Jul 5 - Sep 9, 1944
04/02/21
Jul 5-6, 1944 - Johnny visits some locals (Angelina, her mother, her brother). An air raid siren forces them to run for the nearest shelter as bombs start dropping on the town. Johnny spots someone taking pictures of the bombs landing as Johnny and his friends are running for the shelter.
Johnny is wearing his new rank insignia. He must have been promoted since the Jul 4 strip. It looks like Johnny is in Italy. Who are these kids and their mother? Who is taking pictures of the bombs landing?
04/03/21
Jul 7-8, 1944 - Johnny tackles the photographer to save them from a bomb blast. The photographer turns out to be a beautiful blonde. She starts to chew him out for ruining the shot she was attempting to capture. He doesn’t really hear what she is saying. He tries kissing her and she uses some martial arts skills to send him flying.
The blonde is presumably Brandy, the title of the chapter. Johnny’s attempt to kiss her wouldn’t go over well in this decade but 77 years ago standards for comic strips and society in general were a little different.
04/04/21
Jul 10-11, 1944 - Johnny and the photographer part ways. He tries to hitch a ride back to base without luck so he starts walking.
She will be back. This can’t be the last he’s seen of her.
04/05/21
Jul 12-13, 1944 - Johnny gets splashed with mud by a passing jeep. He yells at the driver and the vehicle stops. It is the photographer. She laughs at him and then tries to apologize but Johnny isn’t in a forgiving mood. He leaves her sitting on the ground in a mud puddle and continues on foot.
I really like the visual storytelling here. Robbins doesn’t try to explain everything. He doesn’t show Johnny throwing the photographer in the mud, for instance, just his anger before and the aftermath of their second encounter.
04/06/21
Jul 14-15, 1944 - the photographer catches up to Johnny. She suggests a truce and introduces herself. Her name is Brandy and she is working with Squadron 521, Johnny’s unit. Johnny turns down her offer of assistance. An American soldier who saw the whole encounter is stunned by Johnny’s rebuke of Brandy’s offer.
The American soldier asks Johnny if he is a “physical culturist” or just saving himself for a woman back at home. I think the physical culturist crack maybe his way of asking if Johnny is keeping himself celibate because of his focus on physical fitness.
I love how Robbins imparts so much information in each strip. He learned from others like Caniff but Robbins’ story doesn’t linger at all. It is always moving forward.
04/07/21
Jul 17-18, 1944 - Johnny gets back to base. He tells Scotty about how he struck out with a blonde. He then learns that Brandy is going to be going with the squadron on their next mission.
04/08/21
Jul 19-20, 1944 - Scotty explains that all the men in the squadron want Brandy to fly in their plane. He was planning on having a lottery to determine with whom she will fly but Johnny nixes that idea.
I’m not sure where this is going other than that Brandy is going to wind up flying with Johnny. Hopefully there is more to it than just that.
04/09/21
Jul 21-22, 1944 - Johnny is offered a mission by S-2 (Intelligence). There is no guarantee that they will make it back alive but Johnny and his two wingmen, Darowski and Stein, accept it with full knowledge that they may not return from it.
Johnny and his unit fly B-25Hs. I’m a bit surprised to hear that they were offered the mission although they might not in reality had much of a choice in the matter.
04/10/21
Jul 24-25, 1944 - Johnny and his wingmen are tasked with dropping supplies to allied troops that are operating behind enemy lines. The raffle for Brandy begins.
I wasn’t sure exactly how to phrase it but the raffle will determine which airplane Brandy will ride in during the squadron’s mission.
04/11/21
Jul 26-27, 1944 - Brandy insists that Johnny and his crew be included in the raffle. She draws the winner’s name while Johnny, Darowski, and Stein are elsewhere planning the mission.
The winner has yet to be revealed but I will be very surprised if it is anyone but Johnny. Robbins sure draws out the suspense over who will win the raffle. Four of the eight panels on this page are wordless ones devoted to drawing the winning name.
04/12/21
Jul 28-29, 1944 - something is up but Johnny doesn’t find out what it is until the last minute: he won the lottery. Brandy will be riding with him and his crew.
It didn’t occur to me until I read these strips that Brandy didn’t know Johnny’s name when she said he should be included in the lottery. I love the looks on both their faces when they realize what is up. Neither one of them seems overjoyed.
04/13/21
Jul 31-Aug 1, 1944 - Johnny is ready to blame Scotty when Brandy reveals that she’s the one that put his name in the drawing.
I really like how action filled these strips are. The story does not slow down here. It keeps rolling forward from panel to panel. Robbins does a great job varying the angles and providing a sense of motion.
04/14/21
Aug 2-3, 1944 - Johnny, Scotty, Loopy, and Brandy take off on their mission to deliver supplies to guerrillas. Brandy is disappointed when she learns that they won’t be dropping any bombs. She perks up when Johnny warns her about how dangerous this mission will be.
The squadron’s base of operations is revealed to be Italy. I suspected that was the case but this is the first time that the country’s name was mentioned.
04/15/21
Aug 4-5, 1944 - Brandy tries talking Johnny into landing the plane instead of just dropping the supplies as they fly over. Johnny doesn’t buy into Brandy’s logic for going with her plan. She leaves Johnny and winds up talking to Loopy. She learns from him about the fastest way out of the bomber.
I’ve got a feeling that Brandy is going to do something stupid which will force Johnny to land the bomber.
04/16/21
Aug 7-8, 1944 - Scotty explains to Brandy why they are flying low over the water. Loopy spots a German ship. Johnny decides that they should light it up.
04/17/21
Aug 9-10, 1944 - Johnny and the other two pilots hit the German ship hard and sink it. They are spotted by a German tank unit as they hit the shore and start to fly over land once again.
Action! Adventure! Only the first of the eight panels in these two strips is a close up showing the interior of the B-25. The rest of the panels are all wide shots and do a great job of telling the story visually with a little help from some radio chatter.
04/18/21
Aug 11-12, 1944 - Johnny also destroys a few German tanks. Brandy leaves the cockpit and seems uninterested in the fireworks.
It isn’t explicitly clear to me but I think Brandy is putting on a parachute and getting ready to jump from the bomber, in the last couple panels. She doesn’t make a big show of it and Johnny is occupied with flying the plane so he doesn’t notice.
04/19/21
Aug 14-15, 1944 - the bombers start to drop the supplies for the guerrillas as they fly over. Brandy asks Johnny to land so she can get some good pictures. She jumps out of the bomber when he denies her request.
Johnny wasn’t expecting her to do that even though he jokingly suggested she do just that.
04/20/21
Aug 16-17, 1944 - Scotty and Loopy blame Johnny for encouraging Brandy to jump. Brandy floats down towards the ground. She is smugly satisfied with her decision until she realizes that the wind is blowing her away from where she wants to land.
Three out of the four panels in the first of these strips focuses on what’s going on in the plane and the other one on Brandy. The ratios are reversed in the second strip which is focused mostly on Brandy.
04/21/21
Aug 18-19, 1944 - Brandy’s parachute get tangled in a tree. Johnny decides he needs to land his bomber and rescue her. He tells Scotty to leave if he isn’t back in 15 minutes.
The tension builds. Johnny doesn’t see the German tanks in the forest nearby. I love the panel that reveals the presence of the tanks. It says so much without a single word.
04/22/21
Aug 21-22, 1944 - Johnny takes off running towards the tree line with a sub machine gun in search of Brandy. She sees him and is about to yell out her location when she sees a German tank roll past beneath her.
How will Johnny and Brandy get out of this mess?
04/23/21
Aug 23-24, 1944 - the tank stops right under Brandy. She can see that the tank is getting ready to open fire on the plane. She desperately scrambles to come up with a plan to save Johnny, Scotty, and Loopy.
I don’t know it is that the tankers haven’t noticed Brandy. Those vehicles are noisy. That’s the only reason I can come up with to reasonably explain their oversight. I also don’t understand how Brandy is messing with all that gear up in the tree without bringing attention to herself or dropping something.
04/24/21
Aug 25-26, 1944 - Brandy drops some flashbulbs on the tanks. The Germans think they are under attack by guerrillas and quickly retreat. She yells for Johnny once the Germans have left. He gets a good laugh when he sees her in the tree.
I question how realistic it is that the German soldiers would think they are under attack and immediately take off but this is a comic strip.
04/26/21
Aug 28-29, 1944 - Johnny helps Brandy escape from the tree. Time runs down as Scotty and Loopy hope that Johnny and Brandy will return. Johnny and Brandy emerge from the woods and start to make a run for the B-25 just as time was running out.
Six of the eight panels are focused on Scotty and Loopy. The first and last panels are the only ones that feature Johnny and Brandy.
04/27/21
Aug 30-31, 1944 - Johnny and Brandy make a run for the plane but they are forced to take cover when the German tanks start shooting at them. They watch the bomber get ready to take off. Brandy apologizes to Johnny for getting them into this mess.
04/28/21
Sep 1-2, 1944 - Johnny and Brandy make out, thinking that they don’t have much time left until the Germans get them. Scotty has decided not to take off. Loopy and Juke keep shooting at the German tanks while Scotty taxis the bomber all over the field. The other two bomber open fire on the German tanks when they see what’s going on.
I buy what happens between Johnny and Brandy but the dialogue in the first strip is a little much for me. There are a few too many “Darlings” thrown around to satisfy me.
04/29/21
Sep 4-5, 1944 - the bombers cut the tanks to pieces. Scotty heads back to pick up Johnny and Brandy only to find them making out in the hole in which they’ve been hiding.
The first strip is just three panels. The first panel takes up the space of two regular sized panels and looks very cinematic. It shows the bombers taking out the tanks.
04/30/21
Sep 6-7, 1944 - Brandy rides up front with Johnny on the way back.
These two strips are mostly humor and fluff. There are a couple wide shots,one in each strip, and the rest of the panels are closeups.
05/01/21
Sep 8-9, 1944 - Brandy promises not to do anything more stupid but Johnny’s not sure he can trust her. She doesn’t take kindly to his remedy for her impetuous spirit.
That’s it for the second arc of the strip. It was a decent mix of action and humor. I think that at this point I’m more impressed by Robbins visual storytelling skills than I am with the content of the strip.
I have no idea if this is it for Brandy or if she sticks around for a while longer. The title of the next arc seems to imply a shift in location from the European Theater of Operations to the Pacific one.
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